Yuri Averbakh/Isaac Boleslavsky Award
The Yuri Averbakh/Isaac Boleslavsky Award is an annual event organaised by the FIDE Trainers Commission to select the best chess book for the year.
FIDE Trainers Commission have now narrowed their choices to eight books that you will find below:
Quality Chess has three titles and include the following;
Decision Making in Major Piece Endings by Boris Gelfand.
Decision Making in Major Piece Endings-excerpt.
The Italian Renaissance – I: Move Orders, Tricks and Alternatives & The Italian Renaissance – II: The Main Lines by Martyn Kravtsiv. Sample pages for Italian Renaissance I-excerpt and Italian Renaissance II-excerpt.
Think Like a Machine by Noam Manella and Zeev Zohar. Sample pages can be found here.
New in Chess has two books.
Timman’s Triumphs: My 100 Best Games by Jan Timman. Sample pages can be found here.
The second book is Zlotnik’s Middlegame Manual: Typical Structures and Strategic Manoeuvres by Boris Zlotnik. Sample pages can be found here.
Elk & Ruby has Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships: Volume I (1920-1937) by Sergey Voronkov. Sample pages of the book can be found here.
Russell Enterprises has The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov. The Early Years: 1921-1948 by Andrey Terekhov. Excerpt of the book can be found here here.
Thinkers Publishing has Your Jungle Guide to Chess Tactics: Sharpen Your Tactical Skills by Peter Prohaszka. Sample pages can be found here – Prohaszka-Jungle-guide-final-251120.
The FIDE Trainers Commission will in two weeks time shortlist to just three titles. On 21st July 2021 the winner will be announced..
Selection by Kim Bhari
I have not reviewed any of these fine books as yet. My choice would certainly be the Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships: Volume I (1920-1937) by Sergey Voronkov.
The book covers the interesting period from the early and tumultuous years of the USSR. It also has 170 rarely seen photos and cartoons.
My other selection would most probably be The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov. The Early Years: 1921-1948 by Andrey Terekhov. The book with 536 pages is beautifully produced with hardcover binding and numerous photos. Some of the photos have come from Smyslov’s family’s own archives.
Links
Evgeny Vasiukov Chess Champion of Moscow.
The Story of a Chess Player by GM Ehlvest.
Anatoly Karpov – The making of a Champion by Tibor Karolyi.
Application of Chess Theory by GM Efim Geller.
Mikhail Tal’s best Games 2 – by Tibor Károlyi.
The Giant Chess Puzzle Book by Zenon Franco.
